Funding received for East Belfast Housing Lab

Monday 17 September 2018

We are delighted to have received £26,000 funding, in partnership with The Holding Project, from Nationwide Building Society to develop a housing lab in east Belfast.

The East Belfast Housing Lab will be a place were we can work and create new housing ideas with young citizens and local residents in east Belfast. East Belfast Housing Lab will develop new solutions with young citizens, organisations and government agencies from issues of finance and policy, to planning and design. It will develop new, alternative solutions for increasing housing affordability for young people through co-creation and advocate for these ideas to be trialled.

Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society, has been looking to support charities dealing with the many issues around housing in Northern Ireland, and made £250,000 available to help make a difference across communities across the region.

Nationwide invited applications for grants of up to £50,000 for housing projects that have the potential to strengthen communities and help make a difference in local areas, ranging from preventing people from being homeless, helping people into a home and supporting people to remain in their homes. Applications for the grants were accepted from across Northern Ireland.

Ian Milligan, Nationwide’s Deputy Regional Director, said:

“One in six people in Northern Ireland have been homeless or have experienced family or close friends without a home of their own, so it’s imperative that we do something about this.

“Helping people into homes of their own is at the heart of what we do as a building society, which is why we’re making funding available for local housing projects. In fact, we’re making £22 million available over the next five years across the UK to do just this and ensure everyone has a place fit to call home.”

A Community Board of Nationwide members, employees and local housing experts was appointed to have a say on which local community projects were supported, with almost 20,000 members then voting on the awards shortlisted across four regions, including Northern Ireland.